NEMO Found?

The May edition of "National Geographic Adventurer "(which I stopped my subscrpition to several years ago as more than half the pages are glossy marketing ads, outdoor gear marketing is still marketing and I can't stand it in any form, but I digress) contains a story by Dave Roberts where he calims to have found the remains of the patron saint of the Red Rock Wilderness, Everett Ruess.

Through a series of Navajo stories passed down through a family the reamains of a young anglo male were found in a crevice burial high on Comb Ridge, 90 miles from Davis Gulch in the Escalante country where searchers claimed to have found his last camp in 1934.

At first I thought the claim was pretty far fetched and blew it off as nothing but hype for "Adventurers" 10th Anniversary Edition, but after reading it they make a pretty good case. The bones and other artifacts show it was approximatley a 20 year old 5' 8" anglo killed around the time Everett disapeared. DNA results are still pending, which makes me wonder why they published the article before getting them back?

I think more than anything I just don't want Everett to be found, I think of him out there wandering still, maybe someday I will run into him.

Wilderness Song

I have been one who loved the wilderness:
Swaggered and softly crept between the mountain peaks;

I listened long to the seas brave music;

I sang my songs above the shriek of desert winds.

On canyon trails when warm night winds were blowing,

Blowing, and sighing gently through the star-tipped pines,

Musing, I walked behind my placid burro,

While water rushed and broke on pointed rocks below.

I have known a green seas heaving ; I have loved
Red rocks and twisted trees and cloudless turquiose skies,

Slow sunny clouds, and red sand blowing

I have felt the rain and slept behind the waterfall.

In cool sweet grasses I have lain and heard

The ghostly murmur of regretful winds

In aspen glades, where rustling silver leaves

Whisper wild sorrows to the green-gold solitudes

I have watched the shadowed clouds pile high;

Singing I rode to meet the spendid, shouting storm

And fought its fury till the hidden sun

Foundered in darkness, and lightning heard my song

Say that I starved; that I was lost and weary;

that I was burned and blinded by the desert sun;

Footsore, thirsty, sick with strange diseases;

Lonely and wet and cold, but that I kept my dream!

Always I shall be one who loves the wilderness:

Swaggers and softly creeps between the mountain peaks;

I shall listen long to the seas brave music;

I shall sing my song above the shriek of desert winds.

-Everett Ruess